“It is always disappointing to lose three points here at home,” said Pellegrini. “It was very important for our team to try and win the nine points before the international break, and it is not good to finish with a defeat. But these games always happen once a year and today it happened to our team.

“I don’t agree we were casual. I think we were very patient, we tried to create space, and Stoke defended very well. We didn’t play very well creatively and it was a bad day.

“The team will continue working in the same way as we do now.”

However, the Chilean believes City should have had a penalty when Yaya Toure went to ground late on.

He declared: “I don’t talk about the referee. All of you know it was a clear penalty but it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to analyse the game in one minute, it was just one play in 90 minutes. ”

Pellegrini was clearly unhappy with the manner in which Stoke took the lead through Diouf just before the hour mark.

He refused to single out any individual and admitted that he thought the whole team could have done more in the build-up to prevent the striker from finding the net.

“It was too easy the way they scored, it came from our own corner and he ran 70 metres to score the goal,” Manuel reflected.

“It is important to be patient in attack, but it is more important not to concede because when they defend strongly behind the ball at 0-0 you can imagine what happens if they are winning 1-0.”

Pellegrini was forced into an early change when Fernando had to come off after just 37 minutes, and he said the midfielder’s condition will be assessed on Sunday.

“Fernando has a muscle problem in his groin,” Manuel told the press. “We will see tomorrow with the doctor how serious it is.